


Stumbling in the Dark

by boxoftheskyking



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journalism, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Infidelity, M/M, Multi, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-16 19:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11835369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxoftheskyking/pseuds/boxoftheskyking
Summary: Concerning the Culpers, the investigative team of the Philadelphia Gazette. Organized crime, high level corruption, and inconvenient interpersonal entanglements means it's anything but a slow news day.aka I binged Turn and rewatched Spotlight in the same weekend and this is what happened





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge shoutout to random-nexus.tumblr.com for advice on plot.
> 
> The Philadelphia Gazette is not a thing. We are here for fun, not accuracy. Most of my journalistic knowledge ends in about 2005 but hey no one has a budget these days so lets pretend we're working with old stuff.
> 
> Title from a quote from Spotlight.

Ben’s never late for the Monday 10:30, but there’s a new barista at the coffee shop on the corner, so even though he got to work at 7:30, underdressed for the early April chill, his midmorning latte break means he’s skating in right before Washington starts the rundown.

“D.C.. Hale, what have you got?” he says, nodding at the man.

“Another vote on healthcare, not expected to pass.”

“What’s the angle?”

“Got a few Republican aides with some colorful comments directed at the president.”

“On the record?”

“No, but—”

“Get me something on the record.”

Hale looks about to argue, but he shuts up, nods, and looks anywhere but at the editor.

“Tallmadge, where are the Culpers looking?”

Ben chokes on his coffee but manages to cover it.

“Um, yes. Looking. Still looking around. Tipline we set up after the Monmouth High story isn’t bringing in much, so that’s unlikely to be the series we thought it might be. Brewster’s poking a bit at city hall, but we won’t know if anything’s going there until next week at the earliest.”

“By ‘poking’ do you mean pissing off the mayor into suing the paper or do you mean spending half my budget on lapdances and jello shots?”

Ben coughs again. “To be fair, sir, there weren’t any lapdances on the company card. That was all D.A. Lee.”

Washington waves him off. “Come find me when you have a sense of where you’re looking. And congratulate Woodhull, will you? Did we do anything for him?”

“Yes, sir, I will. Alison put a card together for them, we all chipped in on a stroller thing.”

“Good. Don’t call me sir. Metro?” 

Ben sits back and wills himself not to turn red. He’s been one of the Culpers for five years now, but he only took over as editor last spring after Sackett’s unexpected heart attack. He appreciates the confidence that Washington’s shown in him, but he can’t help feeling like a fraud sitting here with some of the local legends he grew up reading.

“Another round of protests in response to the Ryman shooting coming up on the weekend,” Ruiz says, looking down at her notes. “Got some good stuff from the organizers, and from Ryman’s mother and sister.”

Washington nods approvingly. “Get me something from the PPD, will you? If not that precinct or the commissioner then the union at least.”

“Oh you know Arnold will go on record,” Mattson jokes from the corner, and a few snorts of laughter echo him throughout the room.

“That is true,” Ruiz says, smiling wryly. “Nobody likes a making statement quite like Benedict Arnold.”

Washington nods. “Good. I think it’s been long enough since the last time we ran anything of his. Hopefully we’re the only ones sick of him. ”

The rest of the meeting devolves into an argument between Bradford and Washington about a human interest story involving the Eagles at a children’s hospital, and Ben is the first one out the door as soon as they’re dismissed.

“Fucking Bradford,” he grouses to Caleb when he gets back to their office. 

The Culper office is in the basement, just past the payroll office, where it’s been since Samuel Culper launched the first investigative team at the Philadelphia Gazette back in the mid-sixties. Anna often jokes that the coffeemaker and the printer must be from about that time, as one or the other craps out at least once a month. 

Caleb has a pile of about a dozen scraps of paper scattered over his desk, everything from cab receipts to bar napkins and what looks like the title page to a John Grisham novel. He doesn’t look up to answer. “Picking fights again?”

“Remember when we had a sports editor who, you know, liked sports?”

“Remember when we paid people enough to not defect over to teaching?”

“Touché. What the hell is all this?”

"Folo on Monmouth. Stopped by to chat with the nurse, the one who first treated the kids who got hurt. And a bit of this, a bit of that. Nothing concrete yet; it’s all too thin. Oh, hey, and a phone number!”

Ben rolls his eyes. “You get a name with it this time?”

“Where’s the fun in that, eh, Tallboy? Much more clandestine this way. Code name: purple Sharpie.”

Ben clicks his tongue, mostly teasing, in the way Caleb tells him makes him sound like an old man. As he walks into his small office, passing Caleb plugging the mystery number into his cellphone, he brushes off whatever sting he feels down around his ribcage. 

Caleb has a right to do whatever he wants; he’s as single as anyone. And if there was a time last summer that he thought something might happen, if he let Caleb talk him into joining a pickup softball team just so he could listen to his smart mouth behind the plate and so he could feel Caleb’s arms tight across his back after a home run, if they were only inches away out behind the bar at the end of August before a drunken Abe had interrupted— It’s all for the best. It doesn’t work to mix work with sex; just look at Abe and Anna.

He drinks his coffee too fast and lets the burn distract him from any dangerous trains of thought. There’s voicemails to check, emails to manage, and someone’s got to proof Abe’s copy before Washington realizes the man wouldn’t know a properly placed comma if it bit him on the ass.

\---

“How come it’s always you that comes to see me, never that Caleb Brewster?” 

Abby grins at her, and Anna gasps in mock offense. She’s glad that Abby’s joking—when she’d called the Culper line earlier in the day she’d sounded truly shaken. It worries Anna, as the list of things that scare Assistant District Attorney Freeman is a short one indeed.

“You went to college with me, not Caleb Brewster, or don’t you remember?”

Abby sighs. “Just my luck. Ah, well, I’ll just watch him walk away at the courthouse on my lucky days—”

“Don’t you have a boyfriend now? Didn’t I hear about this?”

Abby waves her off. “We’re not saying ‘boyfriend’ yet. Still not sure how I feel about dating a cop. Especially now.” Her teasing grin is gone, and she looks into her coffee like it’s far away.

Anna leans in, hand going to her pocket for her notepad before changing her mind and holding onto Abby’s arm instead. “What’s going on, Abby? What did you want to talk about?”

Abby looks around them at the rest of the coffee shop, then stands. “Let’s walk, yeah?”

She waits until they’re near the river before she speaks again. “What I have to tell you, it’s big. And I can’t be on the record right now. It’s too dangerous. If you go after this and it comes back to me, I don’t know what might happen.”

“Abby, if it’s too—”

“No. I don’t know where else to turn, Anna. Culpers haven’t let me down yet, have you? Come on, let’s sit.” 

They take a seat near the bike path that runs along the river. It’s windy, sky turning grey, and the sound of traffic behind them makes Anna lean in close to hear her.

“So I was working late the other night. Friday, it was Friday.”

“This past Friday?”

“Yeah. I had to take the weekend to think before I called you. I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry about it. What happened?”

“So I was a work late, around 8:30. Going over these case files, and I had my headphones in so I don’t think anyone even heard me in there, I was sitting so still. For, like, hours, my back was a mess when I got up. I had just texted Cicero that I’d be home in the next hour and he’d better have his math homework at least half done if he was going to the movies on Saturday. Asked him if he’d left a plate for me for dinner. So I go out to fill up my water in the kitchen, and so I walk by Lee’s office—” She stops for a moment and picks at the cardboard holder around her coffee. “You remember last year, when I worked the Andre case?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I spent weeks on that case. Reading every statement, going over how many boxes of evidence. And I listened to hours and hours of the wiretaps. And whatever video we had, but mostly those recordings from his phone. Weeks of them, it felt like. I know his voice, is what I’m saying. I knew his voice better than mine. I still hear it in my dreams sometimes, his voice, saying my name. Saying my son’s name. Ordering his men to track us down, to tail us. Ordering— Well. You know.”

Anna hold onto her arm again. Abby takes a deep breath and continues.

“I know his voice, that’s what I’m saying. And I’m walking by Lee’s office and I hear it. Andre’s voice on the other side of the door. And it stops me, you know. It stops me cold in my tracks.

“At first I assume he’s watching an old interrogation or something, listening to a recording, maybe we’re reopening the case. But then I get closer, and it’s too real, it’s not a recording. And Andre laughs, that same laugh, and he says, ‘Don’t be an idiot, Charles.’“

Anna gapes at her. “Shit.”

“And I just froze. I just—I can’t describe the feeling.” Abby laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “They’re laughing together in there. They’re chatting away like—I can’t hear the words exactly, but I can hear the tone. Like they’re old pals.”

“Let me get this clear,” Anna looks around before leaning close again. “D.A. Charles Lee had a closed door meeting with John Andre? Captain in the Hanover crime syndicate?  _In his own office_? That’s what you’re telling me right now.”

“I had to live in a fucking hotel for two months under constant police surveillance because of that motherfucker. He threatened my home, he had guys following my boy to school. And my boss is just in there, what, having tea and crumpets with him. For all I know, he’s the one that gave Andre my information in the first place.”

Anna runs a hand over her mouth, mind racing. It takes all her will to sit still and let Abby continue. 

“And I’m thinking, you know, I have to do something. I have to call someone. But I can’t call the cops, right, because if he’s got Lee then who else— I can’t call Akinbode, because now I can’t trust anybody, can I? But then I get mad, I just get so— I’ve never felt this kind of anger. Cold, calm, like I just—  My mind gets so clear. So I get out my phone and I step over to the door, real quiet—”

“Abby!”

“And I try to record them. Here.” She pulls out her phone and opens an audio file. Anna leans in to hear.

The sound is muffled, she can’t make out any specific words, just varying tones and pitches. 

“There’s three men there,” Anna says, closing her eyes to focus better.

“Right. And here, listen—”

On the recording, a voice that is definitely Charles Lee suddenly shouts, “God damn it, Arnold!” Then the recording ends.

“Arnold?”

Abby nods. “Now I’m wondering, who’s Arnold? There’s a clerk named Arnold Fainstein downstairs, and for all I know any number of guys named Arnold working for Andre. But I’ve got this feeling, this gut feeling that I have to see who’s in that room.”

“Abby, that’s too dangerous. You could have—”

“No, but I’ve got the perfect way. So I go back to my office and open up some file, a witness statement. We just moved to all wireless printing in our wing, and Lee and I accidentally send stuff to each others’ printers all the time. It’s really easy to do— He’s like 0601 and I’m 0603 or whatever. So I print the document to his printer and then I run out to the hall, by the door. And they go dead silent. 

“So I go right away and I knock on the door, and Lee yells ‘Who is it?’ and sounds real on edge. So I’m like, ‘Hey, sorry, I think I sent something to your printer again.’ Super chill, right? And he opens the door a crack, so I can’t see in. And I’m like, ‘Haha, so inconvenient,’ whatever, and he’s like ‘Why are you still here?’ So I tell him what i’m working on and like give him a little ‘Shouldn’t you be at home,’ like joshing around. Like we’re still fine, everything’s fine.

“And so he goes to get the printout and I slip my toe in before the door can close and before he turns back around I open the door just a crack more. I can’t see Andre—he’s probably standing, you know, in the corner behind the door so I don’t see him. But I get a glimpse, just for a second, of the table.”

“The third man?” Anna’s holding her wrist so tightly it might be bruising, but Abby just leans in closer to whisper harshly into her ear.

“Benedict fucking Arnold.”

\---

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Caleb leans back in his chair with a whistle.

“How sure is your source?” Ben asks, unmoving.

“As sure as she’s been. And she’s never let us down, Ben.” Anna can’t seem to stay still. She’s perched on the corner of Caleb’s desk now, but her heel keeps tapping against the side of it. “She’s really freaked out.”

“Freeman saw Andre there?”

“Yeah. Well, no, she just heard him. But she knows his voice, Ben. We’ve got the story.”

“Will she go on the record?” Caleb asks, and Anna paces over to the water cooler.

“No, of course not. It’s too dangerous. She doesn’t know where to turn to—last time Andre took note of her he threatened her kid.”

“Right, of course. But we need proof. We can’t just print—”

“I  _know_ that!” Anna bursts out. “I know we’re not going to run ‘Anonymous Source says the District Attorney and the President of the Police Union are in Bed with the Fucking Hanovers.’“

“Anna—” Caleb stands, about to go over to her, but she waves him off and takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. She’s my friend, and I’m worried. I’m scared for her.”

“Lee doesn’t know that she knows?” Ben asks.

“That what she said. Everything around the office has been normal. You know Abby, you’ve seen her in court.”

“Ice cold,” Caleb nods, impressed. “She won’t let on.”

Ben drums his fingers against the desk. “Okay. Okay, let me think. Lee’s going to be tough—there’s no way of knowing how many at the D.A.’s office he’s got on his side. But Arnold . . .”

“I can’t believe it’s fucking Arnold,” Caleb says. “I can’t imagine him keeping something this big secret. I had lunch with him one time and I could tell you way too much about his wife, let me just say that.”

“Maybe,” Ben muses, “it’s a newer thing. Maybe he hasn’t had time to screw up yet. I agree, it’s unexpected, but that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly a mastermind. Right? We’ve seen how he’s botched press conference after press conference. The only reason he keeps getting reelected is he’s a good old boy and he’ll never say a word against a cop, no matter what.”

“What a world we live in, eh?” Caleb says wryly.

“What kind of world?”

They all turn towards the door, where an exhausted looking Abe Woodhull stands, hair messy and sweater on inside out.

“Abraham!” Anna looks entirely taken aback, and he nods at her, awkwardly.

“What are you doing back?” Ben asks, walking over to hug him. “Don’t you have more leave?”

“Can’t afford it. I only got two weeks paid, and ran out the rest of my vacation when Mary was on bedrest.”

Anna flinches, but tries to cover it.

“Well you’ve missed a bit, Woody, I’ll tell you that. How’s the little guy?” Caleb claps him on the back, and laughs at the way Abe’s face lights up.

“Uh, incredible. He’s really, he’s— Man, I can just watch him, like, look at stuff all day. I mean, obviously we aren’t sleeping. But it’s pretty—yeah, it’s pretty great.”

“I’m going to grab lunch,” Anna says suddenly. “Good to see you back, Abe. Give my best to Mary.”

“Right, yeah. Thanks.” He watches her as she leaves, and Ben and Caleb trade a worried look.

“So is this going to be a problem?” Ben asks.

“This? What’s this?”

“You and Anna.”

Abe scrubs at his face. “I don’t know. I don’t know! I should have ended things, fuck, like nine months ago, but I didn’t. But I can’t just— I mean she’s still married, too. And Mary—” He trails off, staring into space.

“Yeah?” Caleb nudges him.

“She’s fucking amazing. I had no idea— She never gets mad. Or, like, freaked out about anything. She’s so on top of everything, and I feel like this disaster, but she’s so patient and she’s so  _happy_. And I think I’m happy. I mean I don’t even know which way is up right now but I think I’m—I think we’re actually happy.”

“Is this going to fuck up the team?” Ben asks, trying not to sound harsh.

“I won’t let it. You know I won’t, Ben, we’ve got a good thing here.”

“Speaking of,” Caleb says. “We’ve got a story for you. You might want to sit down.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It sucks to see your crush with a baby
> 
> also friends have the best sex

“Jesus, Mary, and fuck,” Caleb yells, again.

Anna shoots him an annoyed look, but she can’t really blame him. He drew the short straw—the short pencil—and is going through all the clips they have on Benedict Arnold. The man has given so many statements, and when they haven’t asked for his input he’s written letters to the editor and blog posts and even Facebook videos, tagging the Gazette, that he’ll be at this for at least another two days. 

Anna herself is writing a followup piece on the Monmouth High story, which she could probably do in her sleep. It’s for the best, though, because Abe is at his desk, catching up on everything he’s missed, and she cannot focus.

When she started at the Gazette, two years ago, she was the first woman to join the Culpers in the entire history of the paper. There had been the usual comments, the same ones she heard at the small local she worked at in Connecticut.  _Not tough enough for the investigative team_.  _Slept her way to the job_. And, of course,  _having a woman will fuck up the team_.

It didn’t come from Sackett, or Ben, or Caleb. But she heard it behind her back at happy hour, and she heard Ben shut down more than one critic when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. And yet . . .

She can’t believe she let this happen. It’s everything she swore she’d never do. She’d never be unfaithful to Selah, and if she did she’d never cheat with a married man. And if she did it wouldn’t be a coworker. And yet. There Abe had been, with his guileless enthusiasm and his genuine love for her work, with is quick smile and smart mouth and fearless pursuit of the truth. With is strong hands on her waist and his clever tongue in her mouth. 

She was with him the day Thomas was born. Mary had been on bedrest for five days, and Abe had come to her apartment. They’d fucked on her bed and then Abe had told her they needed to end it, that he had to become the father and husband he wanted to be. She hadn’t fought with him; she’d just nodded and walked him to the door. Six hours later he texted her a picture of Thomas, tiny and grumpy and perfect. She had taken a long, long shower, and cursed herself for being so stupid.

She thought the weeks apart would help, and in some ways they did. But having him here, his grin, the smell of him . . . She attacks her keyboard, clacking loud enough to drown out anything else.

“Knock knock,” a voice says from the doorway.

It’s Mary, carrying a carseat and smiling like an angel. 

Anna feels her face burn and holds on to the edge of her desk, making herself breathe. Mary doesn’t look at her.

“Is it lunchtime already?” Abe says. “God, I’m still in the weeds.” He rises and kisses his wife, leaning down to take the baby out of the carseat.

“Hiya, Sprout,” he says, kissing the boy’s head. “Were you good for your mother?”

Caleb comes over to look at the baby, and Ben does too, so Anna feels she has to rise and join the group.

“Hello, Mary,” she says stiffly. “He’s very beautiful.”

Mary smiles at her and thanks her sincerely, and another part of Anna’s heart breaks.

Abe hands the baby to Caleb, who is absolutely glowing.

“That’s your Uncle Caleb,” Abe is saying. “And here’s your Uncle Ben. And your Auntie Anna is here, too.” He smiles at her like he can’t believe his luck, and she makes herself smile back.

“Hey there, kiddo,” Caleb says, touching his nose to the baby’s. “Oh, man. I know it’s miserable now, but I miss the baby stage. Can you believe Rosie used to be this little?”

Rosie Brewster Lewis is five going on fifteen, at least that’s Anna’s opinion. Thomas has one hand tangled in Caleb’s beard, and Caleb is grinning and laughing and looking over at Ben. Anna thinks she’s the only one who notices how close he and Ben are, and the stricken look on Ben’s face as he watches Caleb with the baby.

“Come on, Uncle Ben. Say hi.”

Ben brushes the top of the baby’s head with is fingers and leans in, pressing against Caleb’s shoulder. “Hi, little guy.” 

Anna knows she’s the only one who sees Caleb’s face turn serious, eyes flicking between Ben and the kid like he’s committing everything to memory. She sighs and sits back down.

“I’ll take him back, here,” Abe reaches for Thomas and laughs when he can’t untangle his hand from Caleb’s beard. “We’re off to lunch. Text me if you need me.”

Caleb grabs his jacket from the back of his chair. “I’ll walk out with you; I didn’t bring anything today.”

After they’ve both left, Ben looks over at Anna, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh please,” she says. “Like I’m the only one suffering here.”

“Want to come by my place after work? Have a drink?”

“Fuck, more than anything, yes. Are we going to talk about how Caleb looks with a baby?”

“We already knew how Caleb looks with a baby.”

“Not in living color, we didn’t.”

Ben sighs. “No. We’re never talking about it.”

“Stomp it down,” Anna says, smiling wryly.

“It’s the Tallmadge way.”

\---

“So, you and Abe. Is that done, or are you still—”

“It’s done. It is, it’s done. Promise.” Anna leans over to the coffee table to pour herself some more whiskey. There’s half a 2 liter of Diet Coke as well, but she likes the ratio she’s got, so she leaves it.

“You don’t have to promise,” Ben says, earnestly. “It’s got nothing to do with me, I’m just checking—”

“Right, I know. But it is finished.”

They’re both silent for a while, drinking. They’ve killed half of Ben’s whiskey, which isn’t terrible, but it isn’t yet 8 pm, so they’re accepting that today is not a usual day.

“It sucks, though,” Ben says. “Seeing him with the kid. And with Mary. I imagine that sucks.”

Anna shrugs. Ben thinks about quitting, but tops off his drink instead.

“I don’t know what it is about babies,” he says. “Maybe I just don’t see them that much. But man. Fucking. Kryptonite.”

Anna laughs at him. “Not for me. I mean, kind of. But I’ve never been, I don’t know. Like, I never wanted to have his kids.”

“Mary did.”

“That’s mean.” She throws an ice cube at him. He puts it in his mouth.

“Caleb’s good with kids,” he says, brow furrowed.

“Well, he has experience.”

“I think I’d be good. I mean, I’d be scared, but I think I’d do okay.”

Anna smiles kindly over at him. “You’d be great. You are great. Rosie loves you.”

Ben covers his face with both hands. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“No, no,” Anna insists, “what about you? I feel like I used to at least hear about dates, a couple remarks from Caleb about a cute so-and-so at the bar. But lately, what, are you just married to the job?”

“It’s a big job.” 

“I know. But Ben, you’ve got to blow off some steam. You need something outside of this, especially with the all the cuts coming. You don’t want this to,” she snaps her fingers, “disappear, and it’s the only thing you’ve got. And then you’ve got nothing.”

“I don’t have nothing.” He sits up, offended, ready to defend himself, but she raises a hand in surrender.

“No, you’re right, I’m sorry. I’m projecting.” She leans forward in the rocking chair. “But I do worry.”

"You don’t need to worry about me,” he says, taking a long drink and rolling his head along the back of the couch. “I’m always fine. I’ve been fine since I was born, and I was fine when Sam died, and I’ll be fine till something kills me.”

“Ben,” she says. She doesn’t need to say anything else. 

He takes a deep breath and a long drink. “You remember Robert Livingston? That superintendent who had that school contract racket going on like five years ago?”

“Vaguely. I remember seeing the clips, but it was before my time in Philly.”

Ben scrubs at his face. “I slept with a source.”

“Shit.” She’s quiet for a moment, then leans back. “Still, not the end of the world. Caleb got arrested with a source, if I recall correctly.”

“I’m not Caleb. And anyway, that wasn’t— Sarah Livingston, the ex-wife. The one who initially blew the whistle. Sam had just died, I was a mess. I’d just been promoted to the Culpers, and I think part of me wanted to sabotage it. Anyway, it was only a few times. Two weeks after it started she was dead. ‘Altercation with a cop,’ you know the story.”

“Shit. So nothing since then?”

“Every time it gets close I just, I can’t get past it.”

She says nothing. He picks at the corner of the couch cushion, look anywhere but at her.

“Selah’s back in Connecticut.” It’s sudden, punched out of her like it hurts.

“Oh, for what?”

“For good.”

“What?” He stares at her, but she won’t meet his eyes.

“Staying with Alex.”

“Shit, Anna, how long?”

“Left last month. PIcked up his, you know, his recliner last weekend. I don’t know. I know I fucked it up. I was the one fucked it up, but even with things, you know, done with Abe. I still don’t think— I think it might have already been over. I fucked it up, but it was already mostly gone.”

Ben wants to reach out to her, to give her something, but he flounders. “This job,” he says, “it’s not conducive to the kind of life he wanted. Not from what I can tell.”

Anna doesn’t disagree. “I don’t know how they do it. I see Abby, and you know no one works harder than her, but she’s still got it. She’s there for Cicero every second, and now she’s got the new guy too. And I just look at her and I think, like. ‘Fuck.’ You know? Like when did I lose that?”

“Kids, yeah. A real life.” He rubs his hands together, remember the feeling of little Thomas’ hair under his fingers. Caleb’s shoulder against his side.

“I mean, I know I just about ruined everything, but Mary is a godsend. What would Abe do without her? You and me, total fuckups. I don’t know how Caleb does it.”

Ben laughs, humorless. “Caleb does it because Anne only gives him one weekend a month.”

“Right, I know. I know, and I know it sucks. I’m not trying to say that doesn’t suck. But still, before the split, he did it somehow.”

“I know. I never thought to ask, at the time.”

“Speaking of Caleb and sex—” She grins at him.

“Were we doing that?”

“He’s been single a remarkably long time this time.”

Ben waves her off. “This time.”

Anna gives him a look, like she won’t back off until he admits something.

“I’m not fucking up the team.”

“Like I did with Abe?”

“You both knew that was a disaster going in, that’s why neither of you got divorced. If me and Caleb— It’s different stakes.” He knows it’s cruel to say, but Anna just nods, cocking her head to the side and looking at him thoughtfully.

“What about you and me?”

“Me and you? What, dating?”

“No, dipshit. Just . . . I don’t know, ignore me.”

He sets his glass down. “I kind of don’t want to.”

“It’s just—” she runs her hands through her hair, pulling out the hairband and letting it fall over her shoulder. “It’s been a while, and I’m tired, and I hate my empty apartment, and I hate seeing Abe every day and Mary meeting him for lunch. And you deserve better, too. Better than a bro-hug from Caleb ever now and again. You deserve something, after all you’ve done. We both deserve something good, and if nothing’s coming to us—”

“Okay.”

She stares at him. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” He looks about to say something else, but changes his mind, licks his lips. She notices and stands.

“This is a bad idea. Probably.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Come here.”

She stands in front of him, chewing on her lower lip. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

She crawls into his lap and kisses him, direct, no-nonsense, teeth catching on the chapped part of his lip. Her sensible skirt is scrunched up around her waist and her shoes hit the hardwood one after the other. Ben holds on to her with one hand at her waist and the other flat between her shoulderblades, opening up underneath her mouth. It turns wet and dirty right away, and Anna lets her weight sink down on to him. He spreads his thighs wider, sinking down lower in the couch so she’s right where he wants her, and when she grinds down he groans.

“Fuck, Anna,” he breathes, and she licks the side of his neck. 

“You can touch me,” she says, right into his ear, “if you want.”

He slides his hands up the back of her thighs, under the skirt, rubbing and massaging as he goes.

“Oh, that’s nice,” she gasps. “Fuck, why is that so nice?”

Ben laughs. “Our office chairs are from the eighties, that’s why.”

“Keep doing that, will you?” She tucks her face into his shoulder and he laughs at her again, working his way up to her hips and back down. After a minute he slides one hand around and slips it under her underwear, rubbing lightly between her lips.

“Christ, how are you this wet already?”

She tightens her hand in his hair and grabs onto the back of the couch with the other. “Doesn’t take much. Inside, please, fuck.”

He presses in with one finger, then two, crooking them forward until she moans into his ear.

“God, that’s good, that’s so good.”

“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs. “Take what you want.”

She grinds down on him for a minute more, until his wrist almost starts to cramp, and then starts tugging at his belt.

It’s awkward for a minute as they try to get his jeans down without knocking her to the floor, so eventually she stands and strips out of her skirt and underwear while he shoves his own clothes down past his knees. 

“I don’t have— I mean somewhere I have condoms. Shoot, give me a sec.” He fumbles in the drawer of the end table, under a stack of takeout menus and instruction manuals for appliances he hasn’t owned in years. “Hallelujah.”

She lowers herself onto him slowly, eyes closed and neck loose. He has to bite the inside of his cheek and dig his nails into his palms to keep from finishing too soon. As she starts to move, just a bare inch at a time, she makes little noises like she can’t get a full breath, and something about the sound of it makes his insides turn hot and uncontrollable. He yanks at the buttons on her shirt and slides it off her shoulders, his lips tracing up her neck and down to her collarbone, wild and starving. 

She grabs on to the back of the couch to steady herself and starts to ride him in earnest, tilting her hips backward and forward until he can’t keep quiet any longer, streams of unfinished curses slipping out from between his teeth. 

“God, that’s good, yes,” she chants in time, rhythm turning harsher, faster.

Ben hears something that must be himself, as if from far away, as if his mind is looking down on them from somewhere separate. He’s almost embarrassed to here himself muttering, “Fuck me, Anna, yes, please,” as he starts to hurtle towards the edge.

“What do you need, what do you need?” he asks frantically, and she rolls her head back and leans away from him, changing the angle. 

“Right there, yes, that’s it.” Her voice is low and rough and he’s never really thought about how musical it is, how he could listen to it for hours, just like this. He gets her bra unhooked and moves his mouth to her nipple, one hand squeezing her ass and the other tight on the back of her neck, pulling her into him.

When she says his name and cries out he shuts his eyes and comes, gasping into her chest and thanking her and God and everything.

Anna catches her breath first and moves off of him, taking the condom off and wrapping it in a tissue. He thinks she might get dressed again, but she comes back to him and drapes her legs across his lap, throwing her arms around his neck. It’s nice and comforting, her forehead pressed against his, and he smooths a hand up and down her legs, from the smooth, soft thighs down to her prickly shins and back.

“I don’t really shave anymore,” she says.

He shrugs. “Me neither.”

She snorts and kisses his jaw. “That was really nice.”

“Yeah. You good?”

She wiggles her hips a bit. “Could go again. There’s another in there, but I’m good if you are.”

“Here,” he says. “Lay back.”

She does, looking pale and oddly vulnerable in her nakedness as she looks up at him. He kicks his jeans off from around his ankles and pulls off his T-shirt so he doesn’t feel overdressed. He curls up between her and the back of the couch and smooths his fingers lightly between her legs, gradually increasing pressure until he can feel her start to relax. He kisses across her chest as he slides two fingers back in and starts up a steady rhythm, pressing in and up an circling his thumb in counterpoint around her clit.

“Fuck,” she gasps out. “That’s a good move.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, where’d you learn that?”

He laughs. “I don’t know. Intuition?”

She giggles at him, breaking off to moan. “You’re a fucking savant. Ah! Literally, a fucking sava— Fuck!”

He has her nipple between his teeth and tugs lightly before licking at it an moving away. She’s warm and soft and solid beneath him and beside him, and her cheeks are pink and her lips are full and her neck stretches back and up as the muscles in her legs tense and release. He’s loved her nearly as long as he’s known her, and he realizes that in this moment he isn’t worried about anything. She looks down at him and grins, and she is still his dearest friend, even like this, even with her wetness dripping down his arm and her skin marked by his teeth, even when she jerks in his arms and soaks into the cushions of his couch.

She puts on his shirt and her underwear and he pulls on a pair of sweats, and they order Chinese from the place around the corner and even shell out for delivery because neither of them want to leave the apartment. She falls asleep during a Cheers rerun with her head pillowed on his thigh and his fingers smoothing through her hair. He tucks her in on the couch and kisses the corner of her mouth before heading to bed and sleeping like the dead.


	3. Chapter 3

Ben is saying an awkward goodbye to Lia in reception when Mitchell dashes in from outside.

“Tallmadge, come call off your dog, would you?”

With a sigh, Ben follows him out to the parking lot, where Caleb and Bradford are just about toe to toe.

“Caleb, hey!” he calls, and while Caleb turns to him, Bradford says something right in his ear that makes him flush scarlet with rage and raise a hand. Ben grabs his wrist before he can throw a punch, but it’s a near thing.

Bradford laughs. “It’s not my problem that you’re too busy sucking Tallmadge’s dick to see what's really going on. You’d better enjoy your days here, Brewster. They’re numbered.”

Ben holds him back as Bradford stalks off, feeling Caleb chest rise and fall under his spread hand.

“You okay?” he says quietly. Caleb pulls away from him.

“One of these days you’re not going to be quick enough, Tallboy.”

“Come on, Caleb. He’s all bark, you know that. You know better than to pick a fight when his dad’s on the board.”

Caleb won’t look at him, jamming his hands in his pockets and making his way over to his old Jeep. Ben follows.

“Hey. Hey! Are you not talking to me now?”

Caleb sighs and leans against the car. “No. He just— He gets under my skin.”

“You can’t listen to him. He’s fucking Sports because he’s got no instinct, makes the whole department do the work for him. You know that.”

“I know. He was just talking about the publishers’ meeting with the board. Says they’re talking about getting rid of the Culpers. Again.”

“Washington won’t let that happen.”

“Might not be up to him. He went to the mat for us last time, but we’re not indispensable. Our time frame, use of resources. Potential for controversy—and not always the good kind. It’s not a surprise we’re on the block.”

Ben grabs his shoulders, trying to meet his eyes. “I’ll fight for us. You know I will; I’m not afraid of the board.”

Caleb does crack a smile then. “You’re not afraid of anything.”

“And if we can break this story, if we can get Arnold? Caleb, nothing’s more vital than that.  _That’s_  indispensable. That’s a story the city needs.”

Caleb sighs again, but he doesn’t disagree.

“Besides,” Ben says lightly, chucking him under the chin until Caleb swats at him. “Even if they get rid of the Culpers, they won’t get rid of you. They can’t.”

“They got rid of O’Hanlon.”

“She was close to retirement and they didn’t want to deal with full pension. You’re not. Caleb, you’ve been in the field fifteen years. Here for ten. They’ll just move you somewhere—”

“You’re right, fifteen years,” Caleb says, face darkening again. “Fifteen fucking years, which means I don’t have a master’s to fall back on. I’ve got nothing.”

“Bullshit. Hey, look at me. They won’t get rid of you. Me, yeah, I’ll go down with the ship. But you? You’ve won—”

“Stop.”

“You’re a hero, and no one’s forgotten that.”

Caleb scrubs at his face. “I know you’re doing your best. I know you are, trying to keep the band together. But some things are out of your hands. And between the board and the complete lack of anything on Andre and Arnold, not knowing who to trust, where to even start. it just feels— There’s an event horizon coming, and I don’t think you can keep us away from that.”

“Caleb.”

“I have to go pick up Rosie. I’ll see you Monday.” He turns away and opens the door.

“Caleb.”

“What?”

There’s an endless list of things he could say.  _I’ll take care of you, I’ll take care of all of you_.  _I remember the first time I read one of your stories, all those years ago, and it was like a shock straight to my spine_.  _You’re the reason I’m here. I don’t know what to do when you’re scared, you’re never supposed to be scared_.

“My masters is in history. It’s fucking useless.”

Caleb laughs, head back, and reaches out to grab the back of Ben’s neck.

“You’re a good man, Ben. Take it easy.”

Ben ducks in time to hide his blush and says, “Say hi to the kid.”

As Caleb drives away from him he rubs at the back of his neck, feeling Caleb’s touch like a shock of static. He stands there for a long time, lost in thought, before shouldering his bag and heading towards the bus stop.

**Author's Note:**

> If you can't tell I'm mostly a playwright. I know it ain't perfect but hey it's a story
> 
> Also for the record the president of the St Paul Police Union is a giant piece of shit and I despise him and that's what inspired this plotline


End file.
